A will to win

Sometimes competition gets the better of people and they do whatever is needed to win, even when it can be detremental to their physical state, their mental health or in my case, the contents of Saturday night's barbequeue.

After a brief visit to the pub, a group of friends begin the treck up the hill back to base-camp.

Some spoon-fed at the beginning of the group urges everybody to run to the top.

The fuse was lit, and even though I had already lost a bit of food in the pub, I was ready to compete.

I gave the front of the group two or three seconds to run on, and then sprinted to win.

Everybody else was jogging at best, and most were absolutely hammered, but damnit, I was going to win!

I overtook the lot of them at pace, and then stopped to be sick.

A will to win and a win to forget.

The Comfort Factor

On Saturday afternoon, I experienced the comfort factor.

Never have I experienced the ultimate comfort factor (which I shall now refer to as UCF) out of bed.

Usually to experience UCF, you must be wrapped up in a duvet in a slightly cooler-than-normal room and suitably sleepy / full-up / not-thirsty / slightly drunk.

Yet there I was sat in a pub after eating a rib-eye steak and chips and a pint of cider, and upon completing this, I honestly assessed the feasibility of falling asleep right there in my dodgy wooden chair.

Now that is a thorough endorsement of a pub. If I'd mentioned the name, it might have been worth something.

Useage of the pub amenities

Have you ever seen people use them?

I'm not talking about the toilets as such. I'm not talking about the bar itself.

I'm talking about its badly placed and inconceivably garish machines placed in the gents that accept only pound coins and give no change.

Condom machines. Mint machines.

I can picture it now.

Good ol' Dave has been speaking to a woman all night. For him, 9 pints of cider entices him to believe that the woman he's talking to who has no teeth and a hair lip is the most beautiful girl in the pub, and the rest of the room has faded to black.

He heads off to the toilets with his 'tail up', looking to expell urine and gain some extra courage.

Whilst stood at the urinal psyching himself up, he sees a large white box next to the football fixtures for the next month and an advert for a scooter taxi service. The white box only accepts pounds. The white box dispenses his ticket to getting his end away.

Tickler condoms.

How could he possibly go wrong?

Or, better still, the white box contains Smint Mints. In this case, he's struck gold!

If both exist, he's over the moon. With the spending of just two pounds, he's covered the need for flavoured enjoyment in both areas.

Or then again, perhaps his mistress will see what he's just purchased, and can't believe he's been so cheeky to believe that covering his cider breath with a curious mint-smelling odour whilst clumsily tucking away his chocolate black-ribbed knobbler that he optimistically believes will cover his inevitable Brewer's Droop will permit entry to the hanger, so to speak.

Why not just do away with them while they're only distasteful and before they're just plain disgraceful?

Families Welcome

On my drive into the City of my place of work each morning, I drive past a variety of signs directing me to the next exciting place of business.

Each sign serves as the shining light to its location, complete with a catchy tag-line that not only attracts the eye in the first place, but also retains the reader's attention.

This lengivity is key to advertising. It's important that the user remains concentrated on the sign in order to not just take the information in, but to have it ingrained in their very subconscious ready to pull out and present to a friend when they ask the question: "I need a [insert tertiary industry supplier here]. Do you know one?"

For the reasons detailed above, it may be a very good reason why the owners of the sign get slightly peeved when it is defaced in some way.

On my drive, a sign always grabs my attention prior to my joining the motorway (highway). It relates to a pub that has recently opened a restaurant no more than 2 months ago, and is looking to attract fresh clientele to eradicate its stale image.

The sign reads something along the lines of (But is not necessarily formatted strictly like):

Come to the [insert pub name here]

Fresh food & Local Ales

[blank box]

Families welcome

Much like you, I'm not entirely sure what the box is for either. However, it's an invitation for vandals to deface it, and that's exactly what's happened. Scrawled into this box in black indelible marker-pen is a single word.

This word, written in crude block-capitals is standing testament to the imaginative, creative, thoughtful culture that Great Britain is unleashing onto the rest of the world.

Written in this box is the word: 'GAY'.

Gay families welcome. Good to know.

Next time I'm in Town with my gay family, I'll know where to go! Would the people who wrote this really be interested in attracting a predominantly homosexual demographic to the pub? No. They did it because they thought it'd be funny to write 'gay' on a sign that had a sufficient space for it.

Was it funny?

Yes.

I see the ironic nature in these things, things that've been picked up on my comedians and used in sketches like 'Vicky Pollard' of Little Britain, and every time I see something like this, I see people blissfully ignorant of the fact that they're living the stereotypical dream.

Maybe it's worth baring in mind that these things are quite funny really. It'll help ease your temperament if you're a landlord sanding indelible marker-pen off of your brand-new sign.